This lecture is mainly devoted to the analysis of individual choice behavior. Individual choice theory is presented under both perfect information and uncertainty. The theory of competitive consumer and producer provide the necessary background for understanding general equilibrium theory as well as non-competitive market structures.

ECON 502 Microeconomic Theory II

This lecture is devoted to the theoretical analysis of economic institutions and mechanisms, and pays much attention to the main one, namely markets, in which both consumption and production decisions rely on prices. The theory of competitive general equilibrium is presented as an abstract benchmark, from which real-life markets usually depart. The lecture focuses on the sources of market failures and the situations where equilibrium fails to satisfy Pareto efficiency.

ECON 503 Macroeconomic Theory I

The overlapping-generations models of fiat money, the theory of public finance and the optimum quantity of money, transaction costs and its effects on welfare, employment and inflation.

ECON 504 Macroeconomic Theory II

Money supply growth and control, inflation finance and its welfare costs, the role of expectation and the stability analysis in inflation tax issue, optimal collection of the inflation tax.

The contraction mapping theorem. Theorem of the maximum. Dynamic programming under certainty. Measure theory and integration. Stochastic dynamic programming. Modes of convergence and laws of large numbers.

ECON 614 Advanced Topics in Labor Economics

The focus of this course is alternative approaches to macroeconomic theory and policy of unemployment and related problems like under-employment, disguised unemployment and the macroeconomic factors influencing inequality. It covers a broad range of topics in the field of Labor Economics including: human capital, wage determination, labor market mobility and job search, changes in wage structure, shifts in labor demand, compensating wage differentials, discrimination, equalizing differences and institutions in the labor market. There will be particular emphasis on the interaction between theoretical and empirical modeling.

ECON 619 Development Economics

The course consists in a survey of theory and history of economic development. Historical experiences of development in the modern era, different currents of analysis within the field of development, and current developments and recent theoretical advances in the field are among the main topics to be examined.

ECON 630 Behavioral Economics

Behavioral economics describes the field of behavioral economics, which seeks to insert more behavioral realism into economic theory. It tries to show how the use of evidence from psychology can improve the predictive power of standard economic theories. Standard economic theories represent human beings in ways that are often different from how they really behave. Topics include economic fluctuations and speculation, attitudes towards risk, involuntary unemployment, saving, investment, poverty, identity, religion, trust and social welfare institutions.

In this course we will critically analyze both economic theory and economic life through the lens of gender. Topics covered include: the main economic theories of discrimination the labor market; issues concerning gender inequalities in the economy, specifically in the labor market. Also include women’s and men’s paid work and earnings; discrimination; unpaid work and the value of household production; family decision making and intra-household resource allocation; gender and macroeconomic policy; women and development in global economy, women and poverty. The course examines empirical evidence from developed and developing countries, that draws from economics papers that have some sort of econometric methodology.

ECON 621 History of Turkish Economy

The course aims to provide a comprehensive introduction to the Turkish economy with an emphasis on historical evolution, political economy and current policy issues. The historical component of the course examines agriculture-led growth and integration into the world economy (1950-1960), implementation of import substitution policies (1960- 1980) and the post-1980 neo-liberal era under outward-oriented development strategies. The substantive part of the course focuses on selected current policy issues. These include inflation, macroeconomic management and the reform of the state, public enterprise reform, privatization and regulation, financial globalization, central bank governance, and the Turkish financial crises of 1994 and 2000-2001 in comparative perspective, trade balance, public sector and fiscal policy, inflation, financial structure and monetary policy, foreign direct investment and the political economy of Turkey’s external relations with the EU and income distribution and poverty.

ECON 628 Structural Macroeconomics

This course will cover the following topics: credibility of monetary and fiscal policy, theories of economic growth, overlapping generations models, economic fluctuations, price and wage rigidities. It gives an introduction to asset trade with applications to monetary economics. The equilibrium asset pricing with heterogeneous agents, segmented markets and endogenous time-varying risks will also be covered.

ECON 629 Environment and Natural Resources Economics

Theory of externalities. Normative and positive analysis of policy instruments for environmental management. Theory and methods of measuring environmental and resource values as well as survey of the economics of renewable and nonrenewable resources including fisheries, forest, minerals, and fuels. Optimal trade-offs between benefits and costs of resource use, including trade-offs between current and future use. Effects of property rights on resource use.

ECON 631 Monetary Theory

This course will take a fundamentally aggregate approach and relate “money” to different areas in economics such as “fiscal policy” international trade”, “international monetary economics”, “inflation”, “economic growth”, etc. Different types of macroeconomic model with a monetary sector will be studied and some of these models will be solved, using the Turkish data. Special emphasis will be given to current monetary issues in the Turkish economy.

ECON 618 International Economics

This course examines the determination of exchange rates, the current account and other important macroeconomic variables in an open economy. The course aims to develop a general framework to address important policy questions and provide a sound understanding of exchange rate determination, balance of payments problems and implications of macroeconomic and financial linkages between economies. The course will cover recent topics in the area of open economy macroeconomics and international monetary economics.

ECON 610 General Equilibrium Modeling

Basic structures of computable general equilibrium (CGE) models for closed and open economies; integration of input-output and social accounts; multi-period aspects; review of closure rules for the internal and external balance.

ECON 611 Theories of Economic Growth

Traditional and the new theories of growth and their implications for development macroeconomics; the determinants of the wealth of nations and also the appropriate national policies to achieve sustained and stable growth; the economic machine being in motion towards its long run (steady state) equilibrium, in all its giant complexity with many interrelated markets and different agents, classes and institutions.

The main objective of this course is to enable students to understand concepts, methods and results of evolutionary analysis of technical change and economic dynamics. Students examine how evolutionary approaches can be used to further the understanding of complex processes and industrial dynamics (selection, competition, innovation, variety-creation, learning, etc.) that transform economic and social structures. The course includes microsimulation exercises on the computer to allow students to explore evolutionary theories and applications of these in an active way.

ECON 624 Economics of Technology Policy

Neo-classical and evolutionary theories of science and technology policy. National and international systems of innovation. Science and technology policies in developed and newly industrialized countries. Comparative analysis of science parks and technoparks. The aims and means of technology policy in Turkey. National system of innovation in Turkey: institutional structure, agents, and policies. Seminars by relevant policy institutions and R&D institutions on their structures and activities.

ECON 632 Research Methods

Provides opportunity to practice research and presentation skills in applied and theoretical economics.

ECON 627 Alternative Approaches in Economic Theory

This course provides an overview of heterodox and critical approaches to economics, which are somewhat outside the scope of mainstream economic theory. The heterodox critique of neoclassical economics is presented and central themes and current research questions in structural economics, post keynesian economics, sraffian economics, marxian economics, institutional economics, feminist economics and behavioral economics are introduced.

ECON 626 Economics of Innovation

This course introduces the major topics of economic analysis of innovation. It intends to provide students with a solid understanding of theoretical models of innovation with a particular emphasis of the e§ects of market structure and intellectual property rights on the incentives for inventors. This course will shed light on the effects of market power on the intensity of innovative activity as well as the alternative incentive mechanisms such as prizes, patents, copyrights and trade secrecy.

ECON 625 Political Economy

Economic systems, institutions, and outcomes from the perspective of who gains and loses. Conflict over the distribution of these gains and losses, and the use of power to obtain a desired economic outcome will be the focal points of much of our analysis.

ECON 633 Public Economics

Public goods theory; public choice theory; presence of external effects in consumption and production; interdependent utility functions and public goods; Pareto optimality and public goods and choice. Reorganization of production, consumption and distribution; collective decision making as well as the nature and scope of the public sector, public goods, externalities, monopolies, and public revenue system.

ECON 617 History of Economic Theories

This course surveys the main schools in the history of the development of economic thought, beginning with the Classical school and the works of Smith, Ricardo, J.S. Mill, Thornton, Say, and others. It then reviews challenges to the classical school by Marx, Marginalists, and subsequent key figures like Marshall, Walras and the Neoclassicalists. Economic thought associated with the early 20th century transitionalists are briefly addressed, including economists such as Wicksell, Schumpeter, Fisher, and others. Selective chapters and passages of Keynes’s General Theory are read in depth, focusing in particular on Keynes in areas of investment, interest rate theory and money demand. Post-1945 revisions of Keynes and Neoclassical economics in the form of early and late IS/LM analysis are reviewed, and its main challenges by Friedman (Monetarism), Lucas (Rational Expectations), Real Business Cycle theorists, and Post-Keynesian thought (UK and US). The course concludes with a consideration of efficient markets theory and the views of its critics such as Tobin, Hyman Minsky, Shiller, and others. Throughout the course, economic theories will be examined in light of the interrelationships between theory, policies and conditions

ECON 616 Contemporary Approaches on Methodology in Economics

The course starts with a brief introduction to philosophy concentrating on key epistemological concepts introduced by Hume and Kant. This is followed by a topical survey of the methodology of natural science leading to logical positivism. The critics of logical positivist epistemology such as Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos and Feyerabend are given systematic treatment. The last portion of the course is devoted to a study of the history of economic methodology in the nineteenth century. The methodological debates between the spokesmen of the Austrian School and the German Historical School are emphasized. Finally, the verificationist and the falsificationist approaches are contrasted in the works of Robbins and Hutchinson.